Texas’ poverty rate highest in the nation
By ROBERT T. GARRETT
[email protected]
Published: 13 September 2011 05:24 PM
AUSTIN — The number of Texans living in poverty jumped to more than 4.6 million last year, an increase of nearly 9 percent, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday.
For the second consecutive year, Texas’ poverty rate grew — to 18.4 percent, well above the national average of 15.1 percent.
Texas’ rate was sixth-highest among the states last year, trailing only Mississippi, Louisiana , Georgia , Arizona and New Mexico. Texas also ranked sixth in poverty in 2008 and 2009.
Once again, Texas led all states in the share of its population that lacks health insurance, at 24.6 percent. The national uninsured rate is 16.3 percent.
Experts said they weren’t sure why the number of poor Texans grew 9 percent between 2009 and 2010, while nationwide, the number increased 6 percent.
“I didn’t see anything obvious in the state unemployment rate, [and] I had the impression that immigration wasn’t up” because of the recession, said Arloc Sherman , senior researcher at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal research group in Washington.
He speculated that Texas, which didn’t have a big real-estate collapse, may have just taken awhile to feel the full effects of the nation’s economic downturn.
The census study is widely criticized for using an old measure of poverty and not distilling how many of the nation’s poor are illegal immigrants — the bureau asks if people are citizens but doesn’t survey them if the answer is no.
But it still offers the most graphic evidence of a withering and relentless economic contraction: Texas had 4.26 million poor people in 2009 but added about 373,000 last year. That’s roughly equivalent to throwing all of the Killeen-Temple-Fort Hood metropolitan statistical area into the poorhouse.
In child poverty, Texas moved up a notch. In 2009, the rate among state residents younger than 18 was 25.6 percent, or seventh-highest among states. Last year, at 27 percent, Texas came in No. 6, edging out Indiana.
Texas had 1.9 million poor children, the study found.
Frances Deviney, an expert on well-being of children at the Center for Public Policy Priorities, a center-left Austin think tank, said Texas needs to spend more on education and health care to reduce poverty rates.
“Yet the new state budget, which went into effect two weeks ago, makes deep cuts to our public schools, community colleges and state universities,” she said.
Devon Herrick, of the conservative-leaning Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis, said Texas’ strategy of lean budgets and low costs on employers is working well.
“Having a business-friendly environment is a much better way to build jobs, because jobs are really in the long run what eradicate poverty,” said Herrick, a health care economist.
Meanwhile, the percentage of Texans without health insurance coverage may have peaked. It declined last year to 24.6 percent, from 26.1 percent in 2009.
Herrick said reporting variations among the 100,000 households taking the survey may account for the difference.
By ROBERT T. GARRETT
[email protected]
Published: 13 September 2011 05:24 PM
AUSTIN — The number of Texans living in poverty jumped to more than 4.6 million last year, an increase of nearly 9 percent, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday.
For the second consecutive year, Texas’ poverty rate grew — to 18.4 percent, well above the national average of 15.1 percent.
Texas’ rate was sixth-highest among the states last year, trailing only Mississippi, Louisiana , Georgia , Arizona and New Mexico. Texas also ranked sixth in poverty in 2008 and 2009.
Once again, Texas led all states in the share of its population that lacks health insurance, at 24.6 percent. The national uninsured rate is 16.3 percent.
Experts said they weren’t sure why the number of poor Texans grew 9 percent between 2009 and 2010, while nationwide, the number increased 6 percent.
“I didn’t see anything obvious in the state unemployment rate, [and] I had the impression that immigration wasn’t up” because of the recession, said Arloc Sherman , senior researcher at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal research group in Washington.
He speculated that Texas, which didn’t have a big real-estate collapse, may have just taken awhile to feel the full effects of the nation’s economic downturn.
The census study is widely criticized for using an old measure of poverty and not distilling how many of the nation’s poor are illegal immigrants — the bureau asks if people are citizens but doesn’t survey them if the answer is no.
But it still offers the most graphic evidence of a withering and relentless economic contraction: Texas had 4.26 million poor people in 2009 but added about 373,000 last year. That’s roughly equivalent to throwing all of the Killeen-Temple-Fort Hood metropolitan statistical area into the poorhouse.
In child poverty, Texas moved up a notch. In 2009, the rate among state residents younger than 18 was 25.6 percent, or seventh-highest among states. Last year, at 27 percent, Texas came in No. 6, edging out Indiana.
Texas had 1.9 million poor children, the study found.
Frances Deviney, an expert on well-being of children at the Center for Public Policy Priorities, a center-left Austin think tank, said Texas needs to spend more on education and health care to reduce poverty rates.
“Yet the new state budget, which went into effect two weeks ago, makes deep cuts to our public schools, community colleges and state universities,” she said.
Devon Herrick, of the conservative-leaning Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis, said Texas’ strategy of lean budgets and low costs on employers is working well.
“Having a business-friendly environment is a much better way to build jobs, because jobs are really in the long run what eradicate poverty,” said Herrick, a health care economist.
Meanwhile, the percentage of Texans without health insurance coverage may have peaked. It declined last year to 24.6 percent, from 26.1 percent in 2009.
Herrick said reporting variations among the 100,000 households taking the survey may account for the difference.
